(Redirected from Tanggula Mountain Pass)
Marker on the Tanggula Pass border between Tibet and Qinghai, 5231 meters above
sea level.
The 'Tanggula Pass' (
Traditional Chinese: 唐古拉山口;
Simplified Chinese: 唐古拉山口;
pinyin: Tánggǔlā Shānkǒu) in the
Tibetan
Tanggula Mountains is a
mountain pass that rises to over 5000 metres above
sea level.
The
Qinghai–Tibet Highway reaches its highest point of 5231 meters here. On
August 24,
2005,
rail track was laid through the Pass at 5072 meters for the
Qingzang railway, also known as the
Qinghai–
Tibet railway, making the Tanggula Pass home to the highest railway in the world, surpassing the altitude of the highest
Peruvian railway by 255
m (837
ft).
[1] The railway connects
Xining,
Qinghai Province to
Lhasa,
Tibet Autonomous Region in the
People's Republic of China. The 1,080-kilometre (670-mile) section from
Golmud to
Lhasa was opened on
July 1,
2006. The rail cars are pressurised in order to avoid
altitude sickness.
The 'Tanggula railway station', at 5,068 m in elevation, is the world's highest, surpassing Cóndor station, at 4,786 m, on the Rio Mulatos-Potosí line,
Bolivia, and
La Galera station at 4,781 m in
Peru.
In 2008 the
Tanggula Railtours joint venture of RailPartners and Qinghai Tibet Rail Corp will launch a cruise train service from Beijing to Lhasa through the pass using three specially-built luxury trains.
[2]
References
1. Xinhua News Agency (August 24, 2005). New height of world's railway born in Tibet. Retrieved August 25, 2005.
2. ''Railway Gazette International'' (August 30, 2007). Launching luxury on line to Tibet. Retrieved September 2, 2007.
External links
★
Tangula Railtours